


Every Little Thing Is Going to Break Your Heart

by Anonymous



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animal Abuse, Child Abuse, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Extremely Underage, Heavy Angst, M/M, Parent/Child Incest, Psychological Trauma, Uncle/Nephew Incest, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-27 21:41:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Underneath the harsh, white lights that hung from the ceiling, illuminating Jeremiah’s long, slender fingers that curled around knives and scalpels and files and needles and any other pocket-sized torture device, being in the basement reminded Bruce of a scene in a movie where the characters would get captured and interrogated by a villain from England or Russia. Jeremiah was a tall, scary doctor in a long, white coat who liked to pull out people’s teeth.Or bones out of birds.(Or, Jeremiah is an unstable single parent and Bruce is his even more unstable son.)





	Every Little Thing Is Going to Break Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> The characters presented in this fic are entirely fictional and no one is being abused or exploited for the sake of this story. This was written as a form of catharsis. Please note the dead dove and turn away now if this is something that’s going to disturb you.

_“Of course you know he’s one of the brightest students here,” Mrs. Meagle said, “but his interest in schoolwork is, ah. . . waning considerably. His A’s have dropped to C’s in a few months’ time. He used to love science and math and now it’s as though he’s never cared or had ever had any desire to pursue them.”_

_“Perhaps he’s not being challenged enough,” Jeremiah said, sounding distinctly cold as ever while talking to any authority figure he happened to have the displeasure of meeting. “Or perhaps it lies in the teaching methods.”_

_“No, I’m sure that’s not it; I’ve never deviated from my curriculum, Mr. Valeska.” Mrs. Meagle’s voice grew firmer. “Bruce has little to no interest in anything at school aside from a small circle of friends. He has trouble concentrating and he’s far more aggressive and difficult to manage than he used to be. And, well, there’s. . .” She sighed over a shuffle of papers. “I’d like you to look at these.”_

_There was a horrible pause as Bruce’s heart pounded, his ear pressed against the outside of the office door. The silence lasted for about five or six years before Jeremiah finally broke it._

_“. . . I see. He was drawing these in class?”_

_“Yes. If he were older, even by just two or three years, I might not even mention it, but he’s simply just not old enough to be this interested in sex yet. The boy just turned nine, for God's sake. Or, more accurately, he_ shouldn’t _be this interested.”_

_“Some children develop sooner than others. Bruce is far more advanced than his peers. As far as the imagery goes, most children are just curious, especially if they have internet access—“_

_“Mr. Valeska, I don’t know if you understand what I’m getting at,” Mrs. Meagle said, her voice lowering to the point that Bruce could barely hear her. “Because of these and his depressive behavior, I believe your son has experienced abuse or is currently experiencing abuse.”_

_“This is. . . news to me. I can assure you he’s perfectly fine and healthy at home. It’s possible this environment has become, ah, suffocating and repressive for him. I can get him looked at to see if he’s inherited any mental illness and it’s only started making itself known now; my family has a bit of a history with that. . .”_

_“Is there anyone in your family or any of your friends you know of who have had access to him? Most sex abuse comes from an adult that the child trusts. I don’t want to scare you or him and I’m absolutely not accusing you of anything. I’m just concerned for his safety. Nobody here wants to contact the authorities on your behalf.” There was another pause. “So if there’s anyone who could have possibly—“_

_“There might be, yes,” Jeremiah said shortly. “I’m sure I know my child better than the school board does, but if you’re this worried, I can talk to him and have the police look into it if you’re right. I just don’t want to expose him to the idea of what something like this entails without knowing for certain if he’s suffered or not. I could do more harm than good.”_

_“I understand, but I don’t think you have a choice at this point. Bruce is a very kind, loving, empathetic, studious, friendly child and I don’t want him to enter the fifth grade hating school and work and distrusting all his superiors. I only want what’s best for him.”_

_“As do I, seeing as he’s my son.” Bruce could only imagine the expression on Jeremiah’s face as he nearly spat his words at Mrs. Meagle. “I believe our half-hour is up. You can call me if you have any other concerns.”_

_“. . . yes. Thank you for your time.”_

_Bruce jumped away from the door, hastily escaping to one of the chairs that lined the wall outside the office. He opened his book at the same time that Jeremiah opened the door._

_Bruce pretended to be absorbed, reading chunks of text about Greek myths without taking in any of the words, refusing to look up. He pretended he didn’t hear the click of Jeremiah’s shoes across the floor as he came closer._

_“Are you ready to go?” he asked, quiet in the way he was whenever he was intent on suppressing his anger or irritation._

_Bruce looked up. “Uh-huh.”_

_“Good.” Jeremiah took Bruce’s hand and pulled him off the seat, not unkindly, their fingers folded together. “You know what, sweetheart? I can’t stand most adults.”_

_“Me neither,” Bruce said, half-smiling. Jeremiah laughed and scooped Bruce up in his arms, kissing him on the nose, then the forehead. He lingered for a moment, sighing softly._

_“Oh, I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much, darling boy, I love you, I love you.”_

_Bruce remembered that morning when Jeremiah had hit him for talking back to him over the breakfast table and it had felt like it was stinging for hours._

_Bruce swallowed. “I love you too.”_

* * *

“I just wanna know why,” Bruce mumbled, hugging his knees as he clutched at his phone with his free hand. His eyes focused on shifting, dappled beams of light that filtered through the tree leaves above him. “Just tell me why I can’t go.”

“I don’t need to tell you why. I said no and that’s the only reason you need.” 

“But _why?”_ Bruce said between his teeth, feeling frustrated enough that he could cry. “You never let me go out with anyone and you never tell me why!”

“You don’t need to!” Jeremiah snapped, raising his voice at the other end of the line for the first time during their entire conversation. “You don’t need to go out with anyone anywhere! You could get hurt, you could get kidnapped, someone could do something to you that you’d never recover from—anything could happen to you. Anything.”

“It’s just a stupid birthday party!”

“With girls. There’s no reason to go to a party with girls at your age.”

“How come? Who cares if girls are there or not?”

“I care. You don’t need to be in such close quarters with self-obsessed little whores and young women who want to look at you and take advantage of you.”

Bruce felt the corners of his eyes sting for some reason he couldn’t understand. “Selina’s not a—a whore.”

“Bruce, of course she is,” Jeremiah said mildly. Bruce heard him shuffling papers around. He must have been in the study. Bruce was only allowed in there when Jeremiah felt like pulling him inside. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She wants to steal you away and take your clothes off. She wants to taste you.”

Bruce shuddered and sniffled, quickly swiping at his eyes with his sleeve. “Please don’t,” he said quietly. 

“Fine, ignore me all you want,” Jeremiah said with a sigh. “You’re not going to the party.”

“But—“

“I will not speak about this again. Be ready in fifteen minutes so I can come get you. I love you; never forget that.” Jeremiah ended the call and Bruce was left with a hollow sadness, wanting Jeremiah to stay on the line as much as he’d wanted him to hang up. 

His mouth tightening, he pulled up Selina’s contact to text her that he’d come to see her anyway. When he could, at least. 

* * *

Jeremiah had a weird presence that seemed to freak people out. Whenever he would come to collect Bruce, people would blink or shiver or stare or shift if there happened to be anyone still lingering outside the front of the school at three-thirty in the afternoon. It wasn’t because they knew Jeremiah was actually a creep. They could just feel it.

(Bruce sometimes wondered if he would’ve run away if he had been able to feel it sooner.)

Fortunately, it was cold and windy and Bruce was shivering underneath his jacket when Jeremiah showed up too soon after the awful phone call, so he was alone and he couldn’t feel embarrassed. Not around any teachers or friends, at least. 

God granted him a chance at just that the second he climbed in the car, though. No sooner had he shut the passenger door that he felt cold, smooth lips on his, fingers pushing at his cheek to angle his head just right. 

Bruce’s stomach turned over unpleasantly. It felt so bad for them to do this right outside the school. Bruce pushed at Jeremiah’s shoulder, his voice muffled against the mouth that was trying to shut him up. 

When Jeremiah did, finally, break away, a soft blush high on his cheeks, his eyes shining behind his glasses, Bruce turned scarlet, turning away as much as he could and curling in on himself. “I still hate you,” he muttered. “A lot.”

“Hate is a very strong word, Bruce,” Jeremiah said lightly, straightening back up. His hand didn’t leave Bruce’s thigh, though, stroking the fabric of Bruce’s uniform as he pulled away from the curb. Bruce could feel the heat radiating from the touch. He felt dirty and uneasy, even though nothing had happened yet. Not really. 

“It’s not strong enough,” Bruce said, keeping his eyes stubbornly on the scenery outside his window. 

Jeremiah trailed his fingers up Bruce’s leg, up to his mid-thigh. “I know you’re angry with me, but I always do what I do for your sake.”

Bruce squirmed a bit in his seat. “What, you won’t let me do anything or have fun ‘cause you _care_ about me?” 

“Yes,” Jeremiah deadpanned, finding the inseam of Bruce’s pants and running his fingers along it. Bruce’s eyes fluttered shut as he bit down on his lip, his blush worsening. “You’re right, I don’t care about you at all and I never have. Bruce, really, get a grip on yourself. Why would I want to just keep you from having fun?”

“B-because you’re awful.” Bruce swallowed and bit down on his lip when Jeremiah brushed his thumb over the tiny bulge in Bruce’s pants. “You don’t care if I’m happy.” 

“I care very, very much if you’re happy.” Jeremiah pulled his hand away, leaving Bruce twitching and sensitive, pulling his jacket down to cover himself up. “And me protecting you is absolutely necessary to achieving that. You’ll need to apologize to me when we get home for what you’ve said to me.”

Bruce twisted his fingers in his jacket, his stomach heavy with a sort of dread. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry, don’t make me—“ Bruce pulled his knees to his chest, suffocating himself. It trapped him and made him ache in his pants a little, but he didn’t care. “—don’t make me do anything.”

“Saying sorry just because you’re afraid of what’ll happen if you don’t is not a sincere apology, darling.” 

“I am, okay? I’m sorry and I really, really mean it, I swear, I’m sorry for everything I said.” Bruce’s lip trembled and he bit it again, hard enough that it hurt. “Daddy, please don’t,” he finished on a whimper. “Please.” 

“I don’t think you’re telling the truth. Not in the slightest.” Jeremiah held out his hand without glancing away from the road. “Give me your phone.”

Bruce’s stomach dropped like he’d just been over a dip in a roller coaster. “Why?”

“Give me your phone,” Jeremiah repeated, slower and softer. “Now.”

“Why, though?” Bruce asked, the dread inside him quickly spreading throughout his body. “Dad—“

“If I’ve had to tell you more than once, that is already too many times,” Jeremiah said, a dangerous note in his voice. 

Feeling a little like he was going to throw up, Bruce finally pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and placed it in Jeremiah’s hand. Bruce sunk down lower and lower as Jeremiah pulled over to the side of the road. 

“Can’t we just go home?” Bruce pleaded as Jeremiah silently unlocked the phone. “Dad, come on, this is so—“

“‘I’ll get out after my dad falls asleep’,” Jeremiah read, his voice controlled and steady as he scrolled through Bruce’s recent texts. “‘I’ll see you on Saturday, Selina. Sorry about the party; I’ll just give you your present afterwards. Haha’. ‘Drug the stupid jerk so you can get here sooner.’ ‘I wish’.” 

There was an uncomfortable _thwack_ as Jeremiah threw Bruce’s phone down against the center console. 

Bruce burned with shame, twisting his fingers together in his lap, staring down at them. He didn’t say anything and neither did Jeremiah as the car started again, but he did turn the steering wheel with a furious jerk of his clenching fist, throwing Bruce against the passenger door as they got back into the lane, well above the speed limit. 

* * *

The rest of the drive was painful, twisting Bruce’s stomach into anxious, sick knots, making him want to pitch himself into the street, but it was nothing compared to the sound of the front door shutting behind Bruce when they got home. He expected it to clang, for jail-keeper’s keys to jingle as his captor left him to rot in a cell. 

Bruce wasn’t that lucky. Instead, Jeremiah hung up his jacket, ran his fingers through his hair, and turned to backhand Bruce across the face. 

It hurt, but only in a very faraway sort of way. It was the shock that struck Bruce harder, even though this had happened before. It made him stumble back, choking out a sob as he fell to the floor on his backside. 

“Get up. I didn’t hit you that hard; get up, get on your knees.” Jeremiah grabbed the front of Bruce’s shirt and jacket, pulling him forward. Bruce’s heart thudded against the constraints of his ribcage and he really, really did feel like he was going to throw up now. It seemed louder than the clink of the buckle on Jeremiah’s belt. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to ruin Jeremiah’s nice suit like Jeremiah was going to ruin his uniform. 

Jeremiah twisted his fingers in Bruce’s hair, pulling his head back as he worked at the button and zipper on his own pants. Bruce felt a familiar dismay, an ache in his jaw, and a bad taste on his tongue already. 

“Daddy, please don’t,” Bruce whispered, clutching at Jeremiah’s thigh, fingers curling in the fabric of his dress pants. “Please, I can’t, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry—“

“Bruce,” Jeremiah said, soft and firm as he released Bruce’s hair, brushing the back of his hand down Bruce’s cheek. He slipped the tip of his thumb inside Bruce’s trembling mouth and tugged on Bruce’s bottom lip, pulling it between his fingers. “You were very disrespectful. You said very hateful things to me and you intended to disobey me.” He released Bruce’s redden lip and hit him again, stinging Bruce’s cheek. “Look at me.” 

Tears fought to overflow as Bruce forced himself to stare up at Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s hand moved to Bruce’s hair again, brushing it back in a mock-up of tenderness as he pulled his cock out of the front of his briefs. Bruce preemptively winced and Jeremiah pulled on his hair, tilting his head up once more. 

“Put your mouth on me.” Jeremiah’s voice wasn’t as careful anymore, his impatience breaking through his voice. He gave Bruce’s hair another jerk and Bruce whined before he finally gave in, tentative fingers curling around the base of Jeremiah’s cock as he took the head in his mouth. This was the only part that didn’t hurt. He licked the underside and up over the slit, only knowing what Jeremiah liked and not really how else this was supposed to be done. Jeremiah sighed, his hand moving to the back of Bruce’s head to urge him down a little further. 

This sort of thing had started a few years ago. Instead of taking away toys or video games or any other electronics or grounding him or anything like that, Jeremiah had started making Bruce kneel down and suck his cock, hurting Bruce’s throat and his jaw and his knees. Or he would take his belt and hit Bruce across the back with it. Or he would pull Bruce over his lap and spank him, hard enough that it would be almost impossible to sit down afterwards. 

It hurt and it felt wrong and it felt sick. He knew it was wrong for Jeremiah to punish him this way and he knew it was wrong for Jeremiah to touch him the way he did. He knew it was wrong for Jeremiah to bathe him even though Bruce was ten years old already, he was in double-digits, he should’ve been able to do it by himself, but Jeremiah insisted, paying careful attention to Bruce’s lower half and kissing the insides of his thighs and the creases of his hips and the soft, wispy, wiry hair that was starting to grow below his stomach. He knew it was wrong for Jeremiah to slip into his bed at night and touch him and kiss him on the lips and whisper that he wanted to play like the grownups did in videos he liked to show Bruce while he was drunk on red wine. 

Bruce swallowed around Jeremiah’s cock, trying to keep his mouth from getting so sloppy. He stroked what he couldn’t fit past his lips as he shut his eyes. Jeremiah groaned in mingled pleasure and exasperation, pulling Bruce down even further, making the nails on his free fingers sink into Jeremiah’s leg. 

Bruce squeezed his legs together. Even though he hated doing this, even though it made him sick and miserable, he felt the same way that he had when Jeremiah had touched him in the car. A tension and an ache between his thighs as his cock pressed against the zipper on his pants, hard and too hot underneath all the fabric. He wanted to touch himself, but that always made him feel worse. More disgusting. Bruce always felt bad about touching himself, like it wasn’t allowed, but sometimes he’d rub against his pillows—or Jeremiah’s if it was a Saturday and his father was at work. He would spend a lot of Saturdays in Jeremiah’s bed, wanting to smell the way Jeremiah did, spicy and warm and cinnamon-y. He would watch cartoons and hug pillows and hump them, staying in his pajamas all day until they were ruined. And then he’d clean himself up and cry for an hour in his closet until Jeremiah came home to make dinner and Bruce would hate him being around again. 

Bruce loved Jeremiah when he was gone and he could miss him, but he hated Jeremiah when they were at home together. 

He hated him now. Tears rolled down his cheeks as his lips stretched. Every time Jeremiah pushed his hips against Bruce’s mouth, the head of his cock would shove itself down Bruce’s throat, making him gag. This part almost seemed to last forever, where Jeremiah would use Bruce’s mouth the way he used him in bed, moving quickly and harshly and too unkind for how much smaller Bruce was. 

“Swallow so you don’t make a mess,” Jeremiah gasped out. With a fistful of Bruce’s hair, he tried to fuck Bruce’s mouth as deep as he could go and Bruce’s trained throat opened against his will. “Y-you shouldn’t make a mess on your uniform, ah, _fuck_.”

Bruce didn’t have any choice but to swallow anyway. It pumped down his throat, making him taste the salt of it at the very back of his mouth. He was very familiar with that taste and the way it dripped out of him and looked on his body and his face. He associated the pearly white color with punishment and Jeremiah’s pleasure, because so little of it came out of Bruce whenever he was touched or whenever he brought himself off. 

“That’ll happen when you get older,” Jeremiah had said once, kissing the side of Bruce’s neck as he’d lifted his hand from Bruce’s tiny, softening cock. “But please, please don’t. Never grow up. I won’t be able to love you the same way I do now. Never get older, Bruce, at least not for a long, long time.” 

Jeremiah finally pulled himself out of Bruce’s mouth and Bruce fell into a fit of coughing, hoarse and wet, cum spilling and dripping from the corners of his mouth and hanging in threads that severed from Jeremiah’s cock whenever Bruce moved. He felt so unclean and dirty and he couldn’t speak—not that Jeremiah would’ve wanted him to. 

Jeremiah zipped and buttoned his pants back up, still a little shaky and short of breath. “Good boy. Very, very good boy.” He stroked his fingers through Bruce’s hair and Bruce flinched away, wiping his own mouth with the back of his hand. Jeremiah withdrew, pulling his belt back into place. 

“I’ll make whatever you want for dinner tonight. Anything. We’ll spend the rest of the night together.”

“I have homework,” Bruce said softly, his voice too torn to speak at a normal volume. 

“And I’ll help you with it.” Jeremiah knelt down and kissed Bruce on his wet, raw, swollen mouth. Bruce was too tired to want him to stop. Jeremiah slipped his hand down past Bruce’s waist, stroking his fingers over the tiny bulge in Bruce’s pants, pressed against the hot, constrictive fabric. Bruce whimpered despite himself, going weak against Jeremiah’s touch. He wrapped his arm around Jeremiah’s neck, drawing closer to him, feeling the warmth and the familiarity and breathing in the same smell of cinnamon. Bruce felt so, so tired, so tired and small and broken as he came underneath his father’s deft, gentle hand, trapped in his pants, soaking through them as he moaned. 

Jeremiah cradled the back of Bruce’s head in his hand, fingers carding through soft waves of dark, tousled hair. Bruce was too tired to cry. He let Jeremiah hold him and let himself want it, to be held like he was a bird who had fallen out of his nest and his wing was broken. 

* * *

_When he was seven, Bruce tried to care for a finch who had fallen from the sycamore tree in the backyard. He put it in a shoebox and carried it inside and given it some water and sunflower seeds and bugs he’d collected in a jar. He named it Velveteen and he watched all Sunday, petting its tiny, soft head._

_When he came home from school on Monday (before he’d stopped riding the bus and before Jeremiah had switched jobs, all before things changed), Velveteen was gone from his windowsill. Bruce felt felt terrified, knowing something horrible had happened to it._

_“Where’s my box?” Bruce asked Jeremiah, his lip trembling. “Did you take it?”_

_“You mean the wild animal that you brought into the house without any kind of permission or warning?” Jeremiah asked dryly, leaning against the basement’s open doorway. He was pulling latex gloves off and one snapped against his skin. “That one?”_

_“What did you do? Where is it?”_

_Jeremiah smiled, a slow, awful, sugary smile that made Bruce’s blood run cold. “Would you like to see?”_

_Bruce silently shook his head, feeling his throat grow sore and thick, his eyes stinging._

_“Come here. I want you to see.”_

_“No. I don’t want to.”_

_“Bruce, please, darling, come here.”_

_“I don’t wanna see,” Bruce whispered. “I don’t wanna see what you did.”_

_Exasperated, Jeremiah took Bruce by the hand and pulled him towards the basement. Bruce let out a tiny cry of misery and protest, but struggling never did anything other than get him in trouble._

_The basement was Jeremiah’s laboratory. The study was upstairs, the small room tucked away at the back of the hallway, and that was where he did most of his work. His pen-and-computer-and-building-model work. The blueprints he drew papered the walls. His models, his tiny buildings, were arranged very carefully on a high shelf and Bruce was meant to never, ever, ever, ever touch them or anything else in that room (until later, until everything changed). The study was Jeremiah’s hideaway._

_The basement was his sanctuary._

_Jeremiah thought he was a kind of scientist. He had a master’s degree in engineering, but an associate’s degree in biochemistry and he’d minored in psychology, he’d explained once before, putting together a collection of words that Bruce hadn’t understood in the slightest._

_It meant that Jeremiah created things. He was a builder. He made things, lots of things with his hands. He experimented with things. He had a moth collection and he did taxidermy on rainy Sundays and he kept small bones and skulls and he liked to cut things open and play with them and stitch them back up._

_“Doesn’t that hurt him?” Bruce had asked once, watching a mouse squeak and writhe on the table, blood leaking from in between the lines of black thread along its side. Bruce felt horribly sad looking at the poor, tiny thing._

_“It’s an ‘it’.” Jeremiah had stroked the end of some metal tool down the mouse’s back and the mouse had screeched in distress. One of the stitches had snapped and blood had spilled like an egg yolk breaking, pooling around the animal. Bruce felt like he wanted to cry and maybe throw up. “Once you humanize something, you begin to empathize with it, because you want to relate to it.”_

_“What?”_

_“If you call it a ‘he’, it becomes less of a diseased little animal and more like a friend. Bruce, look at how broken and sick he is.” Jeremiah had dragged the tool over the mouse’s fur, white turned sticky and rusty red. “Would you want to be friends with him? Of course you don’t. He’s just going to make you feel bad about yourself. No one should feel like they need to be friends with a broken toy. So ‘he’ becomes ‘it’. It doesn’t have a name. It doesn’t have any friends. It doesn’t have feelings. It doesn’t deserve your love. It’s just a little bag of blood and bones who lives to reproduce.”_

_The basement hid conversations like that. Underneath the harsh, white lights that hung from the ceiling, illuminating Jeremiah’s long, slender fingers that curled around knives and scalpels and files and needles and any other pocket-sized torture device, being in the basement reminded Bruce of a scene in a movie where the characters would get captured and interrogated by a villain from England or Russia. Jeremiah was a tall, scary doctor in a long, white coat who liked to pull out people’s teeth._

_Or bones out of birds._

_Bruce had seen dead and mutilated animals for long enough that seeing another one wouldn’t have really hurt, but seeing Velveteen on his back with his underside cut and pinned open and his wings spread and picked clean was more than Bruce could take. Bruce clutched at his stomach and coughed, a strange, wet, hacking sound as his throat clenched up tighter._

_“Why’d you do that?” he croaked out. “Look at him! He was_ hurt—“

_“Not anymore. Bruce, you were hurting that poor creature by forcing it to stay alive. Now it’s blissfully asleep.” Jeremiah stroked Bruce’s shoulder and Bruce tensed up, shaking and unable to swallow the spit in his mouth._

_“You’re hurting me,” Bruce managed, hugging himself tightly, because someone had to. “I was trying to help a-and—you wouldn’t let me.”_

_“Sometimes things don’t need or want your help. Some things just need to die. Please don’t learn to be so kind, Bruce, because every little thing is going to break your heart if you do.”_

* * *

_My dad took my phone,_ Bruce sent from the tablet that Jeremiah rarely used and wouldn’t notice was gone. It was a quarter past ten and Bruce was hiding underneath the covers, his breath catching at every movement he thought he could’ve heard coming from downstairs. _He found out about me coming over._

 _Your dad sucks I dont care what he says just come over anyway_ was Selina’s very helpful response. 

_I can’t,_ Bruce typed, feeling exasperated. _He’d find out. He doesn’t like you._

_I dont care I hate him too_

_He called you bad names. I don’t want him to hate you more because he thinks you’re bad and you’re making me bad._

_Are you just scared of him and thats why you wont come over_

Bruce felt a twist of something he didn’t like. 

_No._

Then, a second later: _Maybe I just didn’t want to come at all._

_Fine whatever, i didnt care about your birthday present anyway_

Bruce swallowed and stared at the screen, his thumb rubbing against the side of the tablet. 

_I’m sorry Selina._

And he didn’t get a response. 

Bruce watched the screen in the hopes that he’d see the little grey dots pop up until he heard footsteps on the stairs. He felt panic seize him as he switched the tablet off and shoved it underneath his pillow, pulling his comforter up to his chin. 

His bedroom door creaked and light spilled into the room beyond Bruce’s closed eyes. He felt the mattress dip at his side, then Jeremiah stroking the backs of his fingers over Bruce’s cheek. 

Bruce opened one eye to look up at his father. The yellow light from the hallway glinted dimly off the rims of Jeremiah’s glasses. He looked more comfortable, less intimidating, less saturated with work and adulthood, having swapped out his jacket and waistcoat and shirt for a soft blue sweater that Bruce had always liked to touch. 

“I love you,” Jeremiah murmured, brushing his fingers through Bruce’s hair. “So much. I hope you know why I did what I did. It’s not because I want you to suffer.”

“I know.”

“You’ll get your phone back tomorrow.” Jeremiah leaned down to kiss Bruce on the forehead, lingering there. He cupped Bruce’s cheek in his hand, letting out a tiny sigh. “Okay?”

“Okay.” 

Jeremiah hummed and kissed Bruce’s forehead again. He pulled back ever so slightly, but seemed to change his mind, because he went back in to kiss Bruce on the lips instead. 

Bruce suddenly, actually wanted to go to bed. He made a tiny, muffled noise and Jeremiah used the gap to lick past Bruce’s lips. Bruce felt his stomach turn over with the tired memory of how this felt, the thickness and the wetness and the heat and the taste of Jeremiah’s tongue in his mouth. 

Jeremiah kissed him like adults kissed each other on TV. Slow and deep, like he loved it and never wanted to stop. Bruce thought a lot about how Selina's mother always came to walk her home from school and she'd kiss Selina on the cheek and Selina would scowl and blush and complain, but she'd smile whenever her mother wasn't looking. Bruce wanted so badly to just _act_ like he didn't want Jeremiah to kiss him. He wished he could like it, just so he wouldn't feel so sad every time Jeremiah touched him. 

Jeremiah's big hand slipped down the length of Bruce’s body underneath the covers, dragging from his collarbone to his thigh. Bruce shivered, feeling his heart ache with the uncertainty of what Jeremiah wanted. It could be anything. 

Jeremiah broke the kiss with a soft moan as he caught Bruce’s lip between his teeth, sucking on it before pulling away. He dragged Bruce’s covers back, slipping into bed, his knee between Bruce’s legs. 

Bruce tried to say something, anything, but it was swallowed in another kiss. It was harder and deeper and suffocating. Jeremiah undid Bruce’s pajama top buttons with one hand, the other braced next to Bruce’s pillow. Bruce felt fear and dread grow in his stomach, filling him up and making him heavy. Jeremiah was going to get him naked, so this was going to hurt. A lot. He’d feel it for two days and he’d walk funny. 

Jeremiah began to pull Bruce’s pajama bottoms down his legs. “This is what adults call ‘make-up sex’,” Jeremiah whispered, kissing the side of Bruce’s neck. Bruce could feel Jeremiah’s cock getting hard between the two of them and he had to keep himself from letting out a sob at the idea that it was going to be inside him and it was going to _hurt._

Bruce grabbed at the soft sweater that he liked to touch and shut his eyes again as they stung with tears. It wasn’t going to make it feel any better, but at least Bruce had something to hold onto as Jeremiah dragged his tongue around Bruce’s nipple, making him squirm and moan. 

Bruce felt the tablet buzz from a text notification underneath his head. That ended up hurting the worst. 

* * *

_“I want some.”_

_"You’re about twelve years too young. Absolutely not.”_

_“Please?” Bruce propped his chin up on Jeremiah’s chest, looking at him with big eyes. “What’s it taste like?”_

_Jeremiah’s eyes gleamed as he watched Bruce, the ice in his drink clinking against the sides of the glass. “Kiss me and find out.”_

_Bruce frowned. “How come I’m too young to drink anything but not too young to kiss you?”_

_“Because kissing me won’t force me to call Poison Control and make me worry that you’re going to go into a coma.” Jeremiah traced the outline of Bruce’s mouth with the tip of his finger. “If you’re really, really curious, just kiss me. You’ll taste it.”_

_Bruce looked at Jeremiah in silence for a moment before straightening up, pressing his lips against Jeremiah’s. Jeremiah made a soft sound, something like bliss before he slipped his free hand up Bruce’s back, fingers splayed over Bruce’s sweater vest._

_Bruce quickly broke away, blushing. “Um. . . it’s sweet. Like caramel popcorn. But if someone burned it.”_

_Jeremiah’s mouth quirked up, his hand sliding down Bruce’s sweater to the hem. “Do you like it?”_

_“I guess,” Bruce said vaguely. He didn’t really know; it just tasted weird and heavy and spicy and black._

_“I have an idea,” Jeremiah said, more syrupy than normal as he rubbed Bruce’s lower back over his shirt. “I can let you have a sip every time you take off a piece of clothing.”_

_Bruce’s blush worsened. “What?”_

_“It’s a game. It’ll be fun.”_

_“I don’t know if I want it that bad,” Bruce mumbled._

_“I thought you wanted to be grown-up. You wanted to be a minute ago." Jeremiah's voice had a snarky but languid and almost feminine quality to it, his tongue clicking and fingers tracing lazily over Bruce's back. Whenever he was drunk, he reminded Bruce of the type of boys that older bullies at school would make fun of. Ones with limp wrists who wanted to wear their mothers' makeup and kiss other boys._

_"Do you wear makeup?" Bruce had asked once, looking up from his book on the kitchen table._

_Jeremiah had laughed, setting his knife down on the cutting board before looking at Bruce. "Why—why do you ask?"_

_"I was just wondering. There's. . . there's people at school who say. . ." Bruce had trailed off, feeling stupid. "I thought maybe you did sometimes."_

_"What are people at school saying, exactly?"_

_"Just. . . um. . . a lot of gay people wear makeup."_

_"Ah." Jeremiah had seemed amused, but almost in a grim sort of way. "Bruce, I wouldn't trust the opinions of elementary-aged children and what they have to say about what gay people do and don't wear. It's something they just don't have the capacity to understand yet."_

_"Do you, though?" Bruce couldn't have helped but ask._

_"Wear makeup? Ah. . . sometimes," Jeremiah had said lightly, picking his knife back up. "Only when I'm out every once in a while. And it certainly doesn't have anything to do with how gay I may or may not be. It has more to do with a certain persona I portray."_

_"What's that?"_

_"It's an act. Like I'm playing a character. Maybe I'll show you sometime. It works very, very well on sweet little boys like you." Jeremiah had pressed a firm kiss to the top of Bruce's head and Bruce had smiled down at his book, regardless of how confused he'd felt._

_The point was, even if the bullies at school were horribly unkind and disrespectful, there was some merit to their words. Jeremiah was very, very gay, especially when he was drunk._

_"I don't know," Bruce said quietly, feeling small shivers roll down his back from the dance of Jeremiah's fingers along his spine. "You said I shouldn't drink it anyway."_

_"If I can watch you, I'm not going to worry about it. Just don't drink anything when I'm out of the house. I'm being irresponsible as it is," Jeremiah said, giggling and pulling at Bruce's shirttail. "Oh, I'm a terrible father, aren't I? If only your mother could see me now. If only the poor bitch wasn't dead." Jeremiah swallowed another mouthful of whiskey before untucking Bruce's shirt from his pants. "Bruce, please play with me," he whined. "Please, please play with me."_

_"Okay," Bruce whispered. He straightened, feeling discomfort and abashment curl inside him. His nervous fingers clutched at the hem of his sweater vest before he pulled it up and over his head, his curls fluffing with static. Jeremiah looked up at him with a deep, fond tenderness, eyes dazzlingly green. The vest dropped to the living room floor._

_“That’s it. Here.” Jeremiah handed Bruce the half-empty, sweating glass. “Don’t gulp it; you’ll make yourself sick.”_

_Bruce looked at it for a moment, biting his lip. When he finally took a sip, it burned his mouth and his throat so badly that he couldn’t help his coughing, his eyes watering. “Oh my God,” he gasped out._

_”Oh, dear heart, are you okay?” Jeremiah let another giggle slip out, halfway-hidden behind his hand. “Just give it a minute.”_

_It took more than a minute, but Bruce was finally able to settle down. “Daddy, I really, really don’t want any more.”_

“ _What do you want more than anything else in the world?” Jeremiah asked, unable to keep at least one hand off Bruce. He slid it underneath Bruce’s shirt, fingernails scratching lightly over his ribs. Bruce shuddered and looked away._

 _”Um. . . I guess. . .”_ I want you to stop touching me. I want you to make me stop feeling this way. _“I wanna go see a play.”_

_Jeremiah quirked an eyebrow. “A play?”_

_”Yeah. A play on a really big stage in the city. The kind that Jerome is in.”_

_”Oh,” Jeremiah said flatly, redrawing his hand from Bruce. Bruce felt a delicious triumph and he had to keep himself from smiling. The easiest way to distract and dismay his father was by mentioning his uncle. “I see. Is that it? You want to see_ him?”

_”No,” Bruce said quickly. “I just wanna go to the city. And see a play.”_

_”You do, though, don’t you?” Jeremiah asked, narrowing his eyes. “He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t care about you, Bruce. He doesn’t care about a single person on this planet except for himself. You know, I really don’t like you making a little slut out of yourself, especially not for that fucking waste of human life.”_

_Bruce had a hard time swallowing. “I wasn’t, I didn’t—I just—I just wanted to go out.”_

_”Oh, I’m so sure,” Jeremiah said, scoffing as he plucked the glass out of Bruce’s hand, draining the rest of it before shoving it onto the coffee table. Bruce found himself flat on his back in a second, Jeremiah’s hands curled tightly around Bruce’s wrists._

_”Don't think I don’t know,” Jeremiah growled, crowding Bruce’s space, leaning over him. Bruce felt creeping, breathless terror spread throughout his own body. “I can see the way you look at him every time I let him anywhere near you. How much you want to talk to him and look at him and let him touch you. It’s almost as bad as you hanging around that girl.”_

_”No—“_

_”If my brother told you to get on your knees for him, you’d do it, wouldn’t you? As much as I love you, as much attention as I give you, as much love as I make to you, you always spit it back in my face because you’re an ungrateful brat.” Jeremiah’s whiskey breath was hot and heavy against Bruce’s neck. “Who are the other boys that you play with? Do you let them touch you at school? Do they fuck your pretty little mouth the way Daddy does?”_

_”Stop,” Bruce choked out. “Please.”_

_“Spread your legs for me,” Jeremiah said low in Bruce’s ear, his tongue brushing the lobe. “Spread your legs like the dirty little girl you are. My little Lolita.”_

* * *

On Friday, Bruce tried to walk as little as possible, avoid Selina (her apology text last night didn’t feel like enough) and probing questions from his teacher, and find comfort in someone purely out of spite: his uncle. 

Jerome, his father’s twin brother, was an actor. Mostly in theater, but in a couple of movies and TV shows, too. He smiled and laughed and told jokes a lot more often than Jeremiah did, but he was just as creepy. He had a kind of grin that made Bruce feel hot and uncomfortable. He carried knives in his sleeves. He called Bruce by nicknames that made Bruce cringe and flush pink. He liked to touch Bruce’s hair, pulling on it or ruffling it whenever Bruce was in reach. Jeremiah was the strangest person Bruce had ever met, but Jerome was the scariest. 

Jerome has scars on his face, scratches and cuts and stitches outlined in white. Bruce had asked Jeremiah once what had happened to Jerome, and Jeremiah said, refusing to look up from his paper, “He was in an accident that could’ve been avoided if he weren’t a colossal, barely-semi-functioning idiot” and that was the end of the conversation.

Jerome and Jeremiah were identical twins, but with the scars and lack of glasses and the choppy, fluffy way Jerome cut his hair and the way he talked, he looked and sounded completely unlike his brother. And that was what Bruce wanted. It was what he needed to picture.

Sitting against the outside of the school, huddling underneath the shade and trying to attract as little attention as he could, Bruce sent Jerome a simple _Hi_.

Bruce’s heart thumped quietly in his chest for three minutes, staring at his phone and letting his eyes flicker up to the clock above the text box every few seconds. He felt a jump in his chest when he saw the pulsing grey dots appear. 

_brucie boy, been a while since i’ve heard from ya! <3 i figured miah finally made good on his promise to preserve you in the basement freezer so you’d never grow up! _

This was a bad idea, he could tell, but Bruce kept going anyway. 

_Yeah I know I’ve just been really busy with school and trying to keep Dad out of my room._

_i know i’ve got some bear traps & poison darts & other nice and nasty things to keep mean old daddy away. i had to use them all the time before we grew up. i’ll let you use them anytime, honeypie. _

Bruce felt something tug at the corner of his mouth. 

_Thanks I just wish he’d go away._

_you & me both. what’s he been doing to you, brucie? do i need to come rescue you? i’ll kill him if he’s touched a single hair on that pretty little head of yours. i’ve been meaning to do it for years anyway. _

And in a split second, Bruce realized exactly what he needed to do. 

_Would you really come get me?_

Grey dots appeared, disappeared for a second, and then reappeared. 

_oh bruce, of course i would, anything for you. i do get a little lonely on the weekends if i don’t have anyone in MY basement waiting for me when i get home on fridays._

Bruce brought his finger to his mouth and bit down on the side of it, gnawing his skin to an irritated red. He spent exactly forty-seven seconds deep in thought, the idea of frightening, intense consequence lingering in his mind as a red, flashing warning. 

_Can you come get me from school at two fifteen?_ Bruce finally typed, feeling a kind of thrill he’d never felt before. It was a dooming thrill, but a thrill all the same. Jeremiah was going to kill him. Bruce was going to be murdered. Jeremiah was going to fuck him hard enough to snap his bones, like Bruce had heard in a porn video once—

_you got it, it’s a date. just text me the address and i’ll be there with a kiss for you and dear dad's forged signature._

Bruce felt a flutter in his stomach. 

It was almost in the same way that Selina usually made him feel. 

* * *

"This is the second time in a week that you've been sick, Bruce," Dr. Thompkins said with a sigh, reading the thermometer strip in her hand. "And the fourth time this month. You know, as good of a patient as you are, I really don't like how much I have to see you in here. Are you just doing it for the lollipops at this point?"

Bruce shrugged, kicking his ankles as he sat on the cot in the nurse's office, his hands folded in his lap. "Maybe. I think it's, um, just. . . school. It makes me sick. Or maybe it's the food."

Dr. Thompkins shook her head. "Somehow, I really don't think that's it. Bruce, I hope you're not _forcing_ yourself to be sick for any kind of reason," she said, frowning as she searched Bruce's face. "Is there anything you need to talk to your counselor about?" 

"Nope. No. It's nothing. I just get sick sometimes," Bruce said, his fingers furling and unfurling over and over. "Can I leave yet? My uncle's supposed to come get me soon."

"Your uncle?" Dr. Thompkins arched an eyebrow. "Is your dad out of town? The last time you were in here, he basically tried to have me arrested for being alone in the office with you. Doesn't seem like he'd be so willing to let anyone else come and take you away from school, even if it was a family member." 

"He signed a permission form." No he didn't. "He's sick today too; he wasn't able to drive." No he wasn't. 

"If you say so," Dr. Thompkins said, looking at Bruce with piercing eyes. Bruce felt the back of his neck grow warm and he looked down at his lap. 

The only thing Bruce hated more than evil adults were kind adults. Ones who tried to act like they cared about a younger person's thoughts and feelings and troubles. They were nosy and rude and they liked to pry and make themselves feel better all because they wanted to be some kind of savior. 

Bruce knew how to handle and tolerate being hit and hurt and touched and pushed around and treated like he wasn't worth the air he breathed. He didn't know how to handle people like Dr. Thompkins who seemed to want to protect Bruce. He didn't know how to handle people like Principal Gordon, who openly hated and didn't trust Jeremiah in the slightest and also had some kind of fondness for Bruce that wasn't deserved or warranted. Bruce would rather be slapped in the face than praised. 

At least for the weekend, Jerome was going to be his happy medium. Fear and welcome relief all wrapped up into a package of apprehension and resentment for his father. 

* * *

Jerome scared Bruce in the same way that clowns, magicians, and people in mascot suits scared him. There was something off and unnerving just enough on the surface to make you believe there was something far more sinister lurking underneath. It was like being afraid of the dark: you weren't scared of the thing itself; you were scared of what was able to hide inside it. 

But the lingering, aching cuts and twinges that kept burning inside Bruce from last night made his resolve even firmer. Being afraid that Jerome kept body parts in his crisper or took photos of girls with their heads cut off like a serial killer or had weapons hidden in unsuspecting places around his apartment was a very small price to pay compared to dealing with Jeremiah babying him after what had happened last night. 

(Jeremiah had never done so much to him in one day. He'd never been so greedy before.)

(And body parts in the crisper might actually be kind of cool. It was better than rat parts.)

"Hey." 

Bruce looked up from the book he'd lost his place in after letting his train of thought veer off the tracks. Selina stood at his side on the second-to-last step at the front of the school, hand shoved into her jacket pockets. 

Bruce's gaze dropped back down. "Hi," he muttered as he turned a page, trying to seem like he was busier than he really was. Jerome was supposed to arrive at any minute. He could just play halfway-mute/deaf/blind until then. 

"I'm sorry I said you were scared of your dad." 

"It's okay." 

"Uh, no, 'cause you totally ignored me last night even after I said sorry." 

Bruce bit his lip. "My, um, my dad took my tablet, too. He came into my room and found out I had it. That's why I couldn't text you back."

"Ugh, screw your dad," Selina groaned. "He's making _my_ life suck. Look, it's okay if you can't come over. We could just hang out some other time. Like, just at school. If you want."

Bruce smiled a little, allowing himself to look up again. "Yeah, that's fine. I don't care. It's, um. It's good as long as I just get to see you."

Selina giggled and looked down at a crack in the concrete, running the toe of her shoe over it. "You're still gonna have to bring me a birthday present anyway, y'know." 

"I'll bring it on Monday. Promise." 

"You'd better or I'm not letting you eat lunch with me anymore." Selina put her hand on the railing, her brow furrowing as she looked at Bruce. "Are you ditching class?"

"Uh, not really," Bruce said cautiously. "I've been getting sick a lot. They said I should go home." 

"Oh." The disappointment in Selina's voice was clear. It was sort of pleasing. "Well. . . see you on Monday, I guess. Bring me something cool. Something that's not a book, nerd," she said over her shoulder, heading back up the set of stairs.

Bruce couldn't keep that same flutter from earlier out of his stomach. 

* * *

_"If you don't think I'll make a scene in public, you're even stupider than I ever thought you were," Jeremiah snarled, his fingers clenched in the front of Bruce's shirt as he held him close. "I will tear your fucking throat out if you ever touch him again."_

_Jerome burst into laughter. "Bro, are you_ jealous _or somethin'? You think he's gonna run off some other sick, psycho, perverted little freak who doesn't treat him like a toy he can control? Someone who maybe_ doesn't _treat him like he's got permanent brain damage? Or, wait, uh, sorry, maybe something like that's just hereditary. We all know Mom had it."_

_"Don't," Jeremiah snapped. "Don't you dare. You're the pervert, Jerome, I can't believe you would—"_

_"Would what?" Jerome stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low, slick drawl. Bruce drew closer to Jeremiah, his breath escaping quickly. "Would_ what, _little brother? You think I'd do what you'd do? I know you." His eyes shone bright as he glanced down at Bruce, tongue flicking over his own teeth. "I know you like 'em young."_

_"You're disgusting," Jeremiah said, his voice shaking as he gripped Bruce tighter. "How could you say that to me?"_

_"Ah, y'know, stuff like that is pretty easy." Jerome knelt down and tilted his head, looking at Bruce with an odd, curious smile. Bruce desperately wanted to leave the darkness that the heavy curtain created backstage. Everyone else had left already. Why couldn't Jeremiah? "Brucie, can you show me where the bad man touched you?" Jerome asked, soft and pouting as he reached out to press his thumb against Bruce's bottom lip. "I know he did, didn't he? Your daddy's a bad, bad man."_

_Jeremiah smacked Jerome's hand away and roughly tugged Bruce backwards. "Oh, I see," Jeremiah whispered, his voice dripping with poison. It gave Bruce such a sickening sense of fear in such a short moment that he felt violently ill. "You're trying to turn him against me all because you're_ still _obsessing over your childhood. You couldn't have our mother, so now I can't have my son. That's it. I understand now."_

 _"Mm, nah, I'd say that's just a little too presumptuous._ _" Jerome's tone matched Jeremiah in terms of danger, lurking just below each word with a sharp, open mouth, ready to chew and swallow. "He'll never know what a filthy, nasty degenerate you are until he grows up. Until he realizes what you're doing to his poor little heart and his tiny, tight little body. He'll grow up like you, you know. Kids touch kids touch kids. Vicious cycle," he murmured, dragging out the 's' like the hiss of a cobra. "Now, all_ I _did was touch his shoulder. Next time I'll be sure to traumatize him so good he mixes the two of us up in his dreams."_

* * *

"So what's all this about, hm?" Jerome tapped his fingers in a nonsense rhythm against the steering wheel, casting glances at Bruce whenever he could. He always looked at Bruce like he was trying to read him and figure him out, as if Bruce were truly that complicated. As though he were trying to pick out and analyze Bruce's thoughts. Maybe he wanted to know him as well as Jeremiah knew him. "Finally had it with that stuffy, rotten bitch? Told him to go choke on dirt? Did you kill him? Did he kill himself? If he did, I'll piss on his grave. He doesn't get to get out of this that easy." 

"No," Bruce said around the lollipop in his mouth, tucking the candy into his cheek. Jerome had handed it to him after giving him a wet, sloppy kiss on the cheek that Bruce had had to wipe off, feeling how hot his face was underneath it. "I just don't wanna see him right now. I'm mad at him. He sucks," he finished, echoing Selina's vitriolicism, feeling it flare up inside him. "And I hate him."

Jerome laughed. "He sucks enough for you to be forced to call up your sad, lonely old bastard of an uncle? He's gonna be none too pleased with me, baby boy; I hope you know I'm only doing this 'cause I love you so much. He's gonna have my neck. You remember what I said about the freezer? We're gonna be stuck in there together. You and me trapped together forever in Mr. Bad-Touch Catholic's basement freezer."

"He's gonna think someone kidnapped me," Bruce mused, sucking on the strawberry-watermelon between his lips. "I'll tell him that. He's not gonna be mad at me if I tell him that."

"He'll be mad at _me,_ Brucie. He'll know it's me. Or, if he doesn't, he's sure as hell gonna wanna _believe_ it's me. He's probably calling the cops on me right now, chasing his own tail all over town because his little angel decided he was fed up with him and his complete and total suffocation. But, hey, you know what? Fuck him."

"Fuck him," Bruce repeated firmly, horrified delight at himself making him grin around his lollipop. Jerome laughed again, sounded genuinely pleased as he reached over and mussed Bruce's hair. Bruce giggled even as he tried to duck away. 

* * *

"I'm still moving in, so it's, ah, a bit unorganized, you'll have to forgive me, Bruce." Jerome narrowly avoided a few stacks of cardboard boxes that teetered next to the door as he pulled his coat off. It looked like the storage area in the theater room at school. Boxes and crates and strange costumes were littered and stacked around the living room. "I'm sure your stick-in-the-ass, OCD dad lintrolls you and makes you shower every time you walk in the door, but I hope the shock doesn't kill ya." 

"It's fine. I don't mind." The sight was a little difficult to get used to, though. Especially when Bruce passed by an open box full of cut-up magazines that curled at the edges and were stained with blood. Rusty-looking scissors were tucked beside the stack. A clear plastic tub with some murky liquid in it labeled FRAGILE. A box labeled DON'T LOOK - XX. Another, PRETTY THINGS, and then another, THINGS NO ONE WANTS BACK. 

Bruce briefly imagined himself being stuffed into one of those boxes, labeled BOY PARTS. Or something as equally weird. 

Bruce swallowed and took a step back. "Are you going to kill me?" he asked Jerome, his voice rather weak. 

Jerome leaned down until he was eye-level with Bruce, smiling at him. "Now why would I do that, Bruce?"

"I think you would," Bruce said quietly. "I-if you wanted to." 

"If I wanted to?" Jerome reached out and stroked his finger along Bruce's soft, rounded jawline. "Maybe I would. If I really, _really_ wanted to. If I felt like it."

Bruce felt frozen, his breath sticking in his throat. "Do you?"

Jerome watched Bruce for a moment, licking his lips. ". . . no. No, not yet." He straightened back up, his hand coming up to thread through Bruce's curls, wrapping one around his finger. "Maybe when you're a little older."

Bruce felt colder when Jerome pulled his hand away and left for the kitchen. 

_"Never grow up. I won’t be able to love you the same way I do now. Never get older, Bruce, at least not for a long, long time.”_

* * *

"What does he usually feed you? I don't know anything about kids. How often are you supposed to walk them? You're housebroken, right?" Jerome asked Bruce before turning back to the refrigerator.

"Can you make me a grilled cheese?" Bruce asked hopefully from his place on the countertop. He was only sitting on it because he knew he wouldn't be scolded for it and it was rather thrilling. It was like what they said in commercials about chocolate in December and February: it was the little things in life. 

"I am not a goddamn gourmet chef, Bruce, nor am I a millionaire who can afford luxuries like cheese. Maybe _Jeremiah_ can," Jerome said, drawing out his brother's name like it was a petty insult, "with his pseudoscience degrees and his bootlicking office job, but I, a humble entertainer, cannot."

"Cheese isn't that expensive," Bruce remarked, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"They must teach you a hell of a lot in fifth grade, huh? You're learning about finances now? The economy? Maybe cheese isn't that expensive to pampered little princesses like you, but it is to someone like me." Jerome frowned at the bottle he'd just pulled out of the desolate refrigerator. "Especially when I'm spending money on amaretto. Snap decision, yeah, definitely regretting that. Meant for that to be part of a party-of-one kind of celebration." He pushed it onto the counter next to Bruce. "You're eating leftover Chinese, kid."

"That's okay." Bruce thumbed the label of the bottle next to his thigh. It was different from anything Jeremiah liked to drink and especially anything he liked to drink a lot of. ". . . what's this taste like?" he asked tentatively. He'd learned never to ask that from Jeremiah ever again. Curiosity had killed the cat so effectively that Bruce hesitated to ask anything of Jeremiah, even if it was just about something as mundane as the weather. But even if Jerome said something that freaked Bruce out and made him that much more afraid of the dark, it wasn't as bad as feeling his spine practically snap in half as a scream tore his throat. 

Jerome snickered, closing the fridge and leaning against the door. "Is that your way of asking me if I'm gonna let a ten-year-old drink hard alcohol while he's hiding out in the city?" 

Bruce scowled. _"No,_ I was just wondering. And I'm not a baby. I'm almost eleven. I'll be in middle school next year." 

"Well, I guess that just makes you all grown up, doesn't it, now?" Jerome considered Bruce for a moment, head tilted ever so slightly to the side. "Maybe we can try a little, ah. . . _experiment_ later."

"What kind of experiment?" Bruce asked warily. 

Jerome's serious expression broke. "Corrupting the youth of Uptown Chicago, Bruce, obviously. I know you're smarter than that. Keep up," he said, yanking another one of Bruce's curls before turning back to the refrigerator. 

* * *

"Is this part of a game?" Bruce asked, watching Jerome's hands with all the paranoia of a feral cat watching a human being in dark pocket of an alleyway. "What are you gonna make me do?"

"Jesus Christ, you really are his kid, aren't you? You refuse to trust a single person you ever, ever meet." Jerome shook his head, clicking his tongue in mock disappointment. "Not that I'm the trustworthy type exactly, so, who knows? Maybe you've got a good head on your shoulders." He rested his elbow on the table, chin on his knuckles as he smiled dreamily at Bruce. "And it really is a nice head. I think I'd like to keep it." 

Bruce shifted in his chair and looked at the glass in front of him instead. "Is this gonna hurt?"

"Probably, but not until later." 

Bruce carefully took the glass in his hand. ". . . you drink yours first."

Jerome began giggling again, sounding so much like Jeremiah whenever Jeremiah was drinking that it was uncanny and a little bit frightening. "You really think I want you dead, don't you, honey? Look, if I wanted you dead—" With a flick of his wrist, he unsheathed a switchblade from his sweater sleeve and extending it with a click. Bruce froze in alarm. "—you'd be dead." He dropped the switchblade in the middle of the kitchen table and pushed it towards Bruce. "Here, keep that. I want you to make good use of it." 

Almost daintily, Bruce took the knife in his hand. He pushed the switch on the side back down, then up again. "Thank you?" he said, more like a question than anything, because he didn't know what else he was supposed to say, but there was something undeniably cool and thrilling about holding a knife that was meant for exclusively bodily harm and not for cutting food. "Is this because you didn't come over for Christmas last year?"

"Sure it is. Careful with that. Only use it on people who deserve it." Jerome winked at him. 

Bruce didn't really understand that, but he slipped the closed switchblade into his pocket anyway. "You still have to drink yours first."

"You're incorrigible." Jerome tipped back the glass of amaretto and Coke. "Hmm. You know, it's not too—" He began to cough, cutting himself off. He clutched at his throat, his eyes widening in panic. "Bruce, oh, God, you were right, I-I think I'm dying."

Bruce rolled his eyes as Jerome continued to choke. "You've done this stupid joke before and it's still not funny."

Jerome pouted and dropped his hand. "No one in this family has a sense of humor. Come on, Brucie, drink up, you promised. Not too fast, though. I don't feel like cleaning little-boy puke off my nice, new kitchen floor."

Bruce chewed on his bottom lip, watching the pinprick bubbles dance in his glass. He took a breath before finally giving in and taking a sip.

* * *

". . . and he never lets me go out anywhere _ever._ My friend Selina, my girlfriend—no, no, gross, not my girlfriend, she's just, like, she's a girl and she's a friend—she's having a birthday party on Sunday, right? And I wanna go but I can't because Dad says she's a whore! He says that about every girl he doesn't like! And he doesn't like any girls! He even says that about Mom, but there's gotta be _some_ reason he had sex with her, like, a billion years ago before she died!" Bruce exclaimed, throwing his hand up in the air in a gesture of helplessness and anguish. 

Jerome seemed to have an extremely difficult time getting his words out in one piece, letting his laughter slip through his words. "He's—he's calling fifth-graders whores now? That is the funniest, most pathetic, most insecure—"

"It's not funny, okay? He won't let me see her! He won't let me see her because she's a girl and he wants me all to himself! He never wants me to have fun or do anything with anyone else because he always wants me all to himself! I hate it! I hate him! I wish he'd just die, I hate him s-so much, I just. . ." Bruce felt his throat gum up at the same time that he felt hot, angry tears well up in his eyes. His face was red and blotchy and he had a harder time enunciating, stumbling over words. He felt a strange pull between heavy and light and things felt blurry around the edges. It had started to get dark outside long ago and Bruce's phone, buried in his pocket next to the switchblade, had been buzzing for hours with missed calls and text after text from Jeremiah. It all became too much. Bruce shoved his hand in his pocket and jammed the power button, switching his phone completely off before throwing it on the table. His shoulders shook as he began to cry in earnest. 

Jerome looked lost and almost a little annoyed. “Bruce, hey, don’t.“ He rose from his chair to kneel down in front of Bruce, patting him gently on the shoulder. “There, there. Feel better?”

Bruce couldn’t manage a response, his heart opening up wider than it ever had before, even when he was home alone and he could hear it cave in on him, bouncing off the tight walls of his closet. Now it was soaked up by this hopelessly lonely, dingy, unfamiliar box of an apartment and, in another second, Jerome’s shoulder.

Bruce clutched at handfuls of Jerome, at layered, uneven chunks of red hair and the back of his sweater, soft and well-worn and smelling like rust and firewood and burnt sugar. It was richer than cinnamon, warmer, cozier. It felt new and like home all at the same time. He buried his tears just above Jerome’s collarbone and nearly melted in relief when he felt large, strong arms wrap around him. 

“Bruce, you’re okay,” Jerome muttered. “He’s not here. Don’t—don’t cry. I won’t let him get you. Not tonight. I get to have you instead of him. You’re mine now.”

”I kn-know,” Bruce managed, his voice broken up into coughing sobs. He tried to steady himself and calm down, taking deep breaths, staying in his hiding spot in Jerome’s sweater. 

Crying in front of Jeremiah meant a slap in the face. It meant exasperation and frustration. It meant being told that he was being dramatic and he needed to act his age and if he was going to act like a baby then he was going to be treated like one. It meant a lot that Bruce had to repress. 

Being talked total nonsense to while he was being hugged was more than enough to soothe him. 

When he finally stopped, Bruce sniffled and wiped his face with the sleeve of his uniform jacket. Jerome looked at him like he was a space alien, a strange creature who operated in strange ways. Like he’d never seen anyone cry before. 

“He really did a number on you,” Jerome said under his breath, brushing Bruce’s hair carefully back into place. “Little broken fawn with little broken bones.” He chuckled softly. “Oh, baby brother, look what you’ve done. Look what you let them do to you.” 

Jerome stroked his thumb underneath one of Bruce’s eyes, wiping away a tear track. Bruce’s eyes fluttered as he leaned into the touch, making the tiniest little whining noise. 

Jerome paused for just a moment before he let his thumb sweep over Bruce’s bitten, worried bottom lip, dipping just inside Bruce’s mouth. 

“No,” Bruce whispered, pulling Jerome’s hand away. “No, I want. . . I want to. . .” 

He hesitated and swayed, clinging to Jerome’s wrist for a moment before he leaned forward and clumsily pressed his lips against Jerome’s. 

Jerome got to have him instead of Jeremiah tonight. Bruce didn’t have to kiss Jeremiah. He didn’t have to grab at his bedsheets and beg and plead for Jeremiah to stop or at least go slower. He didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to.

And that meant he was, instead, going to do whatever he wanted. Nobody was going to scold him and tell him no. He could kiss whoever he wanted and it didn’t matter because _screw Jeremiah._

Jerome slowly lifted his hand again, slipping it around Bruce’s neck. Bruce felt the flutter in his chest from before, but stronger, something that spread through him. Sweet and full of light even though he still felt fizzy and fuzzy from the alcohol. Bruce’s fingers landed on Jerome’s face, feeling the dips and tears of each white scar, easy to trace, easy to touch. 

He parted his lips, kissing the way Jeremiah had first taught him, his tongue brushing over Jerome’s mouth. Jerome pulled away with a shivering breath, making Bruce whimper at the loss.

”That little mouth’ll get you into a lot of trouble, darling.” Jerome’s voice was a low, soft growl, his eyes hard and dark. 

“I wanna get into trouble.” Bruce felt his heart beat faster as he threaded his fingers back through Jerome’s hair. “I-I can let you do things to me. I’ll let you kiss me. Everywhere. I’ll let you kiss me between my legs. You can take my clothes off and fuck me hard enough to—“ He lost his voice for a moment and fought to regain it. “—to snap my bones.” 

“ _Fuck,”_ Jerome hissed. His gaze trailed along Bruce’s delicate frame, fixating below Bruce’s waist. “Bruce, you can’t. . .” He shuddered and exhaled. “No, you tell me what else you’ll let me do to you. Be a good little actor for me.”

“I’ll suck your cock.” Bruce could see the outline of it in Jerome’s slacks. It looked big. Bigger than Jeremiah’s. Thicker. It would make him choke and it would hurt. It would ache. “I’ll—I’ll let you sit me on it. I’ll be so good. I’ll be so good and I’ll let you make me take it, and you can kiss me and get me ice cream when you’re done,” he said faintly, feeling the strangest urge to start crying again even as he could feel himself getting hard underneath his uniform. He swallowed the urge back. “I’ve already gotten in a lot of trouble and you need to punish me so I can be good again.” 

There was nothing but mingling, heavy, heady breathing for a moment before Jerome pulled Bruce back down for another kiss, cursing into his mouth.

* * *

When Bruce woke up the next morning, he felt like he was dead.

Or at least really, really wanted to be. 

He stumbled out of bed, naked as he was, and managed to get in the bathroom before he threw up all over the floor. 

His knees felt sweaty and sticky on the freezing tile. His head, in danger of falling off his shoulders, throbbed. He felt gaping and hollow, the burn from the night before last replaced with an aching, unnatural emptiness that was still a blistering pain. 

Physically, he felt empty, maybe, but it was so much worse on the inside. 

Bruce didn’t know why he’d done any of it. Maybe just to spite Jeremiah further? To feel better about himself? To get closer to Jerome? To see if it would feel different if it was from another man? 

And, well, as for the last one, in a way, it had. Jerome didn’t like to kiss as much. He liked to use his teeth. He liked to bite and suck and tear and Bruce could see the marks decorating his skin, all along the length of his body. He looked at Bruce with a hunger, like a cannibal, like he wanted eat the meat off Bruce's bones, rather than the faked affection and devotion that came from Jeremiah. And when he talked, instead of muttering “I love you”s or “oh, God, baby, that’s it, that’s right”s or “you need to be good, you need to be Daddy’s good little boy, don’t you?”s, it was a lot of expletives and teasing and awful, nasty, horrid things that turned Bruce’s stomach. 

_“I’m gonna cut you up someday,” Jerome panted out, clutching Bruce to his chest, rolling his hips underneath Bruce’s angel-fair weight and sinking him down lower. Bruce practically screamed, his head thrown back against Jerome, one arm twisted back to dig his fingernails into Jerome’s flesh. “Gonna carve my name into you. Tear your skin off and wear it under my clothes.”_

_“Jerome,” Bruce cried out, his mouth open, his face slick with saliva and tears, pleasure mixed pain mixed fear. His body convulsed, his cock spilling weakly onto his stomach, wet and overdrawn and oversensitive from having come already._

His throat torn to pieces, his head hurting so badly it felt like someone was trying to drive nails into his skull, Bruce rested his cheek against the cold porcelain underneath him. The smell of vomit was sticky, sticky sweet and toxic and sour. 

Maybe he did deserve to be punished, he thought. He'd proven Jeremiah right. He _had_ made a slut of himself. 

* * *

_"What are you doing?" Jeremiah sighed, leaning against the bedroom doorway._

_"It's none of your business." Bruce refused to look up as he overturned a chest drawer full of comic books onto the floor. "I don't know why you even care."_

_"I understand if you're upset with me—"_

_"Shut up! I'm not listening to you!" Bruce angrily shoved two issues at random into his satchel. "I'm leaving! Forever! I'll go live in the city where you can't find me ever again! I'll join the circus, like you did!"_

_Jeremiah bristled. "Don't you dare tell me to shut up; who in the hell do you think you are?"_

_"I don't know!" Bruce shouted, turning over another drawer, this one full of socks and underwear, and throwing it aside once it was empty. He stuffed what he could inside the satchel. "I don't know who I am and it's all your fault! I don't have any family, I don't have any friends, you won't let me do anything or like anything, you never let me have fun, you never let me talk to anyone, you just keep me in here like I'm in jail when I'm not at school! I hate it!"_

_"Bruce, sweetheart, please, at least lower your voice—you are_ not _going to walk away from me when I'm talking to you!"_

 _Bruce stormed down the hallway, holding onto the strap of his satchel like it was a lifeline. "I don't_ want _to talk to you!"_

_Jeremiah grabbed the back of Bruce's collar, jerking him back. Bruce choked and sputtered, the heel of his shoe kicking backwards and making an attempt to drive into Jeremiah's shin. He let out a furious wail, thrashing even as Jeremiah took him and held him tightly. He clamped one hand over Bruce's mouth, stifling his wordless protests._

_"Now, Bruce, I want you to listen to me very, very carefully," Jeremiah said softly. "You are not going to leave. You are_ never _going to leave, do you understand? I keep you close to me to protect you. I need you here with me. Nobody out there is going to love you like I do."_

_He lifted his hand and Bruce squeezed his eyes shut, gasping and shaking. Jeremiah pulled on his arm, turning him, forcing him to face front._

_Jeremiah bent down, holding Bruce's arms in a spider's clasp, tight and unrelenting. "Bruce, you were born broken," he said, slow and emphatic, gazing into Bruce's eyes. "You were born like me. You were born like my brother. You were born like my mother. The outside world is going to take you and hurt you and ruin your spirit. You will be taken and beaten by people who say they love you, but they don't, because you're unlovable. And that isn't your fault. It's just the way you are. You're a feral child at heart and you're not longed for this world. I'm only protecting you from people who are going to take advantage of that."_

_Bruce felt like he had growing pains all over his body, deep-set and hidden inside his bones. He sniffled and coughed. "N-no—no one loves me?"_

_"I do. I'm the only one who does, Bruce, please, please understand that. We belong to each other. It's like a romance." Jeremiah straightened up just slightly to kiss Bruce, gentle and light as a feather, on the very corner of the mouth and then the center. "You're mine because no one else can have you, and that's the way it should be."_

_He hugged Bruce, cradling him close, rubbing circles over his back with caring fingertips. Bruce didn't think he was supposed to feel so empty after his father told him he loved him._

_And then, as if it were a necessary reminder, he heard it again, buried in his neck. "I love you."_

_"I love you too," Bruce answered anyway._

_"Never, ever try to run away from me again, because I'll find you wherever you go."_

_"I won't."_

_"Do you promise?"_

_"Yes."_

* * *

"I want to go home," Bruce said, sitting on the kitchen counter, swallowed up in one of Jerome's shirts, his head resting against a cabinet because he couldn't keep himself upright. He was praying to something, anything in the universe that his ibuprofen would start working soon. At least he wasn't throwing up anymore.

"So soon? Bruce, we haven't even had a whole day together," Jerome complained with his mouth full, cutting his toaster waffles with the side of his fork. "Besides, look at how little and cute and rumpled you are. I wanna keep that picture here for hours." He eyed Bruce's bare legs. "There's still a few places I need to kiss. You promised me." 

Bruce's eyes flickered down to his phone as it rested in his lap. "I need to go back home," he mumbled. He switched his phone back on and waited for it to wake back up, his heart pounding in anxiety. 

Jerome snorted. "If you tell him where we are, Brucie, let me tell you, it's gonna get real, _real_ bloody _real_ fast. He's the same brand of crazy as me. It's not the kind you've seen before. I'm talking pure psycho. One of us is gonna die and, ah, it's definitely not gonna be me. Not compared to him."

"Can you take me back home?" 

"Maaaybe," Jerome said thoughtfully, sucking the syrup off his fork. "He's at the police station right now. I bet he's making both missing _and_ wanted posters. He's busy screaming his lungs out at some old, withering hag because no one knows where his little boy is. He's probably—oh." His own phone began ringing from the living room and he grinned. "I bet that's him. You can say hi. He's gonna be _thrilled._

"Hm, would you look at that," Jerome said upon his return to the kitchen, his phone in hand, scrolling through dozens of missed notifications throughout the last several hours. "I'm sensing a little bit of anger. Let's see what Daddy has to say."

"Let's not," Bruce said, suddenly awash with panic. Maybe he should have just drowned himself in the bathtub. He was quickly feeling more and more like that was his only option at this point. But it was too late: Jerome had already dialed back. 

"Here, I'll put it on speaker." Jerome set his phone next to Bruce on the counter, tapping the little white icon. Now Bruce actually did feel like he was about to throw up again. 

"'Morning, brother dear," Jerome chirped after the call went through. "You know, I'm glad you called over a hundred times; I feel like we don't talk anymore—"

 _"Where is he!?"_ Jeremiah screeched on the other end of the line. Bruce cringed and tried to bury himself entirely in his oversized flannel. "I'll gut you, you bastard, I'll kill you, I'll fucking kill you, where the fuck is he!? If you touched him, I swear to God, I'll tear your body apart limb from limb, I will kill you—"

"Dad, I'm fine!" Bruce yelled over both Jeremiah's meltdown and Jerome's fit of laughter. "I'm right here!"

"Bruce? Oh my God, what did he do? What did he do to you!? Where are you? I've been trying to call you all night, I didn't sleep at all, oh, Christ, I thought you were dead—did he touch you? Did he hurt you?"

"I. . . no. I asked him to come get me yesterday. After school," Bruce replied, bracing himself for the inevitable response. Jerome raised his eyebrows, surprised at the self-sacrifice. "It was my fault."

"What?" It was so quiet that it sent a full-body shudder through Bruce.

"I was mad at you. I wanted to be somewhere else." 

There was a heavy, heavy pause before Jeremiah finally said, "Bruce, I want you to leave the room so I can talk to Jerome in private."

"You heard the old man." Jerome looked purely entertained as he turned the speaker off. "Go on, baby boy. Shoo. The grownups have to talk."

Bruce pushed himself off the counter with an annoyed little sigh, wincing and gritting his teeth, rubbing his hand against his forehead as he left the kitchen. On his way, Jerome gave his backside a smack that made him jump and squeak, blushing scarlet. 

And, of course, Bruce ducked behind the arm of the couch where he couldn't be seen, but he could still hear. He sat against the wall, looking at his practically endless stream of texts from Jeremiah, all in different, redder shades of terror and panic and anger. 

Bruce could still hear the tinny sound of Jeremiah's voice in vague blurbs, but they weren't enough to make out. All he could hear clearly was Jerome. 

"I didn't do anything you wouldn't have done," Jerome sang, then giggled. "So you're finally admitting it then, huh? How long has it been going on? When did you start teaching your son—your _ten-year-old son_ —how to take dick? You're such a sick fuck, you know that? I almost didn't think you had it in you."

Another short pause. "Oh, no, no, you know what? No. No, look, you listen to me," Jerome said, losing his amusement, his tone growing harsher, more of an undertone. "You can keep feeding me your little sob stories from your spoiled-rotten days in your elite-sick, rich-blooded Catholic prison, that it wasn't your fault, that none of it was ever your fault, and, okay. Sure. I guess no one _does_ deserve to raped in the mouth over and over and over when they're in middle school, but, hey, who's to say? Maybe you did; I sure as hell wasn't there, we know that. Point is, you always point at that, that they broke your twisted little genius brain. That it's still not your fault. That you're not as fucked in the head as I am. You don't feel guilty, do you? So why give yourself an excuse?"

Bruce felt stricken, frozen in place, unable to think.

"Ha! I told you, I've told you a thousand times, I know you!" Jerome crowed. "Of course you're not gonna go to the police; you're too _scared!_ You're, ha-ha, you're—you're worried they're gonna find little pieces of you inside him! You're worried he's gonna tell on you! I'm not going anywhere, bro, and neither are you. _I'm_ lucky you didn't call the police? I'm lucky you're still as much of a useless, braindead idiot now as you have been for the past thirty years! You hurt yourself worse than I ever could, brother, and you're gonna have to live with that."

There was a slight scrape of chair legs across the kitchen floor. ". . . I think you'll have to ask him that yourself," Jerome said, sounding a little more cheerful. "An impromptu, prepubescent prostate exam in your bedroom. Do a little roleplay, maybe. Doctor's coat, lubed-up stethoscope and thermometer, pocket full of lollipops to give him when you're done. Don't be surprised if he's a little _loose,_ though. A little sloppy. You're. . . yeah, yeah, gonna set me on fire, rip my vocal chords out, blah, blah, blah, you're boring, I know. Guess what, though. No, I want you to shut up and listen to me." Jerome's voice dropped to nearly a whisper and Bruce had to strain to hear him. "He told me to touch him. He _liked_ it. He gave it up just like you taught him, right?”

Another pause. “Because I want him to come back to you knowing that this is all your fault. You ruined my chance at family when I was his age and I’d never, ever done anything to deserve that. Not hardly. You deserve it more than anything, though, and you deserve to have that kid hate your rotting, stinking guts for the rest of your miserable life. I'm only giving you what was coming to you anyway.” 

The next pause was longer. It was too long. Bruce had stopped breathing about two minutes ago and the silence was deafening. 

"Mm, yeah, what if I said no? What if I just. . . kept him around? Made him the Beauty to my Beast? I could get a lot of use out of that vulnerable, malleable soul he's got. He's got your head. He's got your heart. There's gotta be something inside him that I just need to draw out. I could sink my teeth into that little shit and make him mine.

"But, hey, I've got time," Jerome added casually. Bruce could hear him making a show out of banging cabinets open and shut, grabbing something loud and crinkly. "He came to me once. He'll come to me again soon enough." There was a loud crunching and a smacking of lips. "He'll make his choice someday. You'll get him back in an hour. Maybe two. Maybe three. We could run into traffic. You'll just have to trust me." 

* * *

Jeremiah had never looked more out-of-sorts than when Bruce saw him again that Saturday afternoon. His eyes were heavy and red-rimmed behind his glasses, his hair disheveled. He was still wearing most of his work clothes, somewhat put-together even if they were a bit rumpled and his jacket was lost somewhere. He smelled like cup after cup of coffee and he was very, very twitchy, like he was an example of a criminal in an anti-drug video they'd play in rallies at school. 

He wasn't really in any position to start or finish a fight, but he still attacked Jerome the very second he could, knocking him to the sidewalk outside the front yard. Bruce slammed the passenger door shut, peering over the hood of Jerome's car and wanting to sink into the asphalt below his feet in exhaustion. 

"Dad," Bruce tried to say over the raucous blend of sound, Jerome's hysterical giggling and Jeremiah's nearly unintelligible shouting. There was a sickening crunch as Jeremiah drove his fist into Jerome's nose. Blood splattered Jeremiah's face when he knocked Jerome's jaw to the side, hitting him in the teeth. 

"Dad, someone's gonna call the police, I wanna go inside, _please,"_ Bruce begged, pulling at the back of Jeremiah's waistcoat. Jeremiah snarled and elbowed him backwards, sending him stumbling back against the sidewalk. 

"Fuck, yeah, that's right," Jerome gasped out, his back arching as he grabbed a fistful of Jeremiah's hair, yanking hard and snapping his teeth at Jeremiah's hand. "S'been way too long; you're doing so good." He drew an angry cry from Jeremiah as his glasses fell and cracked against the concrete, Jerome's fist splitting Jeremiah's lip. 

"If you don't stop it, _I'll_ call the police!" Bruce shouted, pushing himself up and kicking Jeremiah in the shin, too frustrated to do anything else. "You'll go to jail for everything you— _nmph."_

Bruce had never seen Jeremiah move so quickly, his blood-dirty fingers pushing into Bruce's mouth, his other hand fisting itself in Bruce's hair. Jeremiah's chest rose and fell unevenly, his teeth clenched, the cut on his lip weeping. There was something black and formless and starving in Jeremiah's eyes, like something shifting and unnatural biding its time in the corner of a dark closet. Bruce felt his insides go cold. 

"Listen to me," Jeremiah breathed, his fingers twisting until Bruce could feel him pull his hair at the roots. Bruce swallowed down his pained whine, blinking rapidly. "You are in very, very serious trouble, Bruce. You've done something absolutely unforgivable to me and you are so, so lucky I love you as much as I do because if I didn't, I'd bury you in pieces underneath my rose bushes. If you don't hold your tongue, I'll cut it out for you." He released Bruce with a shove before turning his head, looking down at Jerome's dripping form on the sidewalk. He took a second to grab his shattered glasses off the ground, shoving the kaleidoscopes back up his nose. 

"I can't believe you made me waste a second of my time on you," Jeremiah spat as Jerome grinned up at him, breathless and wiping at his own upper lip. "I know the only reason you exist is because some great deity somewhere decided I didn't deserve happiness, but I think this has certainly more pushed the limit." 

"And what a warm welcome that was; you never disappoint, do you?" Jerome managed to get to his feet, trying to stem the flow of blood with his jacket sleeve. "Are you gonna invite me in for a drink? It's been too long." 

"Get off my property before I go and get my gun. You will _never_ see him again. _Ever._ I'll make sure of it." Jeremiah looked back at Bruce, breath trembling as it dragged over his teeth. "If we're lucky, he'll never bother to step outside again." 

* * *

"Where are you taking—that _hurts!_ I don't wanna go with you!" Bruce tried to dig his heels into the floor, scratch at Jeremiah's arm, kick at him, do anything to try and stop Jeremiah from dragging him through the house, his voice high with a nauseating, red blend of panic and anger. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Just let me go! I'll do whatever you want, I don't care, you can make me do anything—"

"I don't want anything from you right now. Not like this." Jeremiah headed straight for the basement door at the back of the kitchen, his grasp like fire on Bruce's arm. "You've disgusted me beyond belief. You're filthy. You let him defile you." 

"I—I didn't—" 

"I know what you did. I know what you let him do to you." Jeremiah threw the door open and the bang of the knob against the wall sounded like a gunshot. He pulled Bruce down the stairs, making him stumble and trip his way down. Bruce was so afraid he felt dizzy, his mouth trying to move so he could form a protest, anything, anything with sound, but nothing came out. 

Jeremiah released his grip and pushed Bruce down the last step in the staircase. Bruce fell with a heavy thud, a sharp yelp, and an instantaneous ache that burst through his head and made him feel instantly sick again, a memory from that morning. 

He touched the place the back of his head had hit the ground and it came away sticky. 

"You're going to stay there until Monday morning." Jeremiah stood on the staircase, the yellow light from the kitchen illuminating him in brief, dim spots of light from behind. He seemed like the perfect image of a ghost, but he was much too solid. Hopelessly real. "I've taken a week off from work so I can punish you properly. I want you to understand exactly what you've done, Bruce. You can never, ever, _ever_ do this again. You'll go to school, where you'll be monitored, and then I will take you home and you'll spend the rest of your time in here." 

"No," Bruce whispered, his heart dropping to the pit of his stomach. "No, you can't. You _can't."_

"Bruce, you've done a very terrible thing. I had hoped I'd taught you well enough by now that your actions have consequences, but apparently I didn't. You'll have to stay here and think about what you've done." 

Bruce grabbed at the end of the banister to pull himself to his knees, feeling a rush to his head that made him cough and gag, swaying on the spot. "Daddy, please, please, don't, you _can't,_ I'm sorry, I'm really sorry," he forced out, his chest being constricted by invisible cords. "I didn't mean to make you feel like this, you can't leave me in here—"

Jeremiah turned and began to ascend back up the staircase. "I'll bring you your meals," he said curtly, so cold and dry that it felt even worse than him being visibly upset. "And I'll take you upstairs to bathe you tonight so I can wash my brother's filth off you. You know this place is soundproof, so don't destroy your voice by trying to make some kind of case for yourself." 

The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Bruce in pitch-black death. 

* * *

Bruce was so tired from crying his heart out that he almost ended up falling asleep on the concrete floor. 

He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs underneath the low, steady hum of the fluorescents. (He'd fumbled around for the lightswitch for ten or fifteen minutes after he'd managed to finally curb his meltdown some hours ago.) 

The cabinets and cases, the tools and supplies, the taxidermied animals, the works-in-progress, the chemicals, and anything else contained in the basement were all locked down. There was nothing to do but look and think and feel. There wasn't any point in touch. 

His phone had died before they'd gotten home. When they had stopped at a gas station and Jerome had given him ice cream and a kiss on the cheek in the car, softer and longer, playing with Bruce's hair. 

_"I'm gonna miss you, Bruce," Jerome said, pouting and pulling a dark curl tight. "At least for a little while. You'll come back someday, won't you? To see me? So we can have some real fun together?"_

_"What's real fun?"_

_Jerome smiled, his tongue poking between his teeth with all the cheery eeriness of a horror movie poster. "The tag-you're-it kind of fun."_

Bruce reached into his rumpled jacket pocket and pulled out the switchblade that had stayed tucked away from Jeremiah's sight. From his spider-web hands. 

Bruce pushed up the switch on the handle, watching the blade extend. He drew it in and out again, his eyes following the movement. Seeing how fast it would go. 

_"Careful with that. Only use it on people who deserve it."_

Bruce held up his free hand, watching his tense fingers twitch and tremble ever so slightly. He dragged the tip of the knife over his palm, following a crease to the center before pressing the blade down, pushing it into his hand until he had to stop, dropping the switchblade. It clattered against the ground, just brushing his shoulder. He clenched his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut, letting out a small cry. His fingers curled in and the blood that bloomed from the center of his palm raced down his wrist, soaking into the cuff of his shirtsleeve. 

* * *

_"Dad?”_

_”Hmm?”_

_“What did Mom look like?”_

_”Extremely average, all things considered.”_

_Bruce frowned, rolling onto his side to face Jeremiah, who was still absorbed in his book, or was at least good at pretending he was. “That really doesnʼt tell me anything.”_

_”If youʼre wondering why you look the way you do, you have my eyes, her nose, her complexion, and your grandmotherʼs hair, may she rest in peace.”_

_“I just wondered if maybe you thought she was pretty.”_

_“Iʼm sure at one time I did, but.” Jeremiah turned a page. “Tastes have a way of changing.”_

_“Why did you marry her if you didnʼt think she was pretty?”_

_Jeremiah laughed. “We were never married, Bruce.”_

_”Why?”_

_“Because I quickly realized that she was thoroughly batshit insane and that I wasnʼt attracted to women. I made a mistake, hoping to make my mother proud and shame my brother even further, but I failed quite miserably. The fact that I was able to get such a blessing like you out of that Greek tragedy is a_ _miracle.”_

_”Did she leave?”_

_”She died. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. You were almost two.”_

_Bruce tried to scrounge up some kind of memory from six years ago. Absolutely nothing. Not a surprise. “Do you miss her?”_

_”Mm. . . I miss her devotion. I miss the coffee she used to make. I miss a few of her pet names.”_

_Bruce rolled onto his back again, looking up at the ceiling. “Would you ever marry someone?”_

_Jeremiah was quiet for a moment. “. . . I donʼt know. Probably not. I donʼt think I could.”_

_”Why?”_

_“I told you that tastes change. I realized what mine were while she was_ _pregnant with you and it was everything that she was not.”_

_”So what was that?”_

_Jeremiah closed his eyes, leaning against the headboard of the bed. "It's something from a book," he said, a gentle, self- deprecating smile on his face. "Something called a faunlet."_

_“I donʼt know what that is.”_

_”Theyʼre a certain type of boy. Smaller, more delicate, softer, pinker. Cupid's hair, big eyes, clumsy fingers. A lot of them look like you.”_

_Bruce blinked in confusion. "Like me?"_

_"Mm-hm." Jeremiah closed his book and looked at Bruce with a soft-eyed fondness. "Just like you, darling. Come here a moment."_

_Bruce did as he was told, shuffling across the bed on his knees. Jeremiah held Bruce's cheek in his hand, warm and tender, looking at him like he was sad. Jeremiah looked very, very sad._

_"Are you okay?"_

_Jeremiah swallowed and nodded. "Of course I am." His breath shuddered. "I. . . remembered something, that's all. Like a bad dream." He was quiet for a moment, searching Bruce's face as though he was trying to find something in it._

_He tilted his head up and kissed Bruce on the lips, light and careful. It wasn't anything much different from what Jeremiah had done a million times, on Bruce's cheek or his nose or his forehead or the top of his head. It was just that it was on his mouth this time and, for some reason, it felt a little weirder._

_Jeremiah stayed there, making a tiny sound that Bruce could feel against his own lips. Bruce felt a strange twist in his chest that made a tiny bell go off in his bed, something that told him this was uncomfortable. That this shouldn't have been happening._

_Jeremiah pulled away, exhaling and looking at Bruce with the same sad expression._

_"I love you," he murmured. "So, so much."_

_"I love you too," Bruce said, the automatic response, even though his mouth tingled and he still felt that twist._

_"I know you do," Jeremiah said, his hand on Bruce's neck, "and that's going to get me in trouble someday."_

* * *

***

* * *

Bruce’s back hit the wall and snapped the air from his chest, his wrists pinned down against the peeling, curling wallpaper, surrounded by bloodstained, fading floral. Teeth sank into his bottom lip, tearing it, pulling him wet and loose. 

When he could breathe again, he tasted the rust in his mouth, open and panting. It was going to show. She was going to see it. 

“Oh, happy birthday, Mr. President.” The words were a low, slick murmur against his neck in between the vampire bites, marking him and making him into a piece of property. Something he’d be reminded of when he looked in the mirror later. “Forgot to send you a card. Fifteen already; you’re almost all grown up, aren’t you?”

"Shut up," Bruce gasped out, catching costume fabric between his clawed fingers. "Shut up, just— _please."_

A hot, wet tongue dragged along the side of his neck. Jerome pulled back just enough to smile, predatory and hungry, buttoning and unzipping Bruce's pants with all the natural practice of a stage performer, quick but flashy. "Does he know where you are?"

Bruce swallowed and shook his head, his eyes closed. "Studying." His body gave a shudder when Jerome palmed him through his briefs, a free hand hooking underneath the collar of Bruce's turtleneck and yanking it down to mouth at fresh skin. "H-he thinks I'm at the library. I sent— _ngh_ —a picture earlier." 

"Does _she_ know where you are? Your ever-so-loyal little bitch of a girlfriend?" 

Bruce yanked Jerome back up for another kiss, mainly just to shut up him, his leg hitching up and over Jerome's waist. Jerome hoisted him up higher, hands gripping his thighs as he moved him away from the wall of the darkened apartment. 

Bruce was still light and bird-boned compared to Jerome. He was almost as tall as him already, losing the clumsiness and lankiness of puberty, his jaw sharper and his face harder, but he was still lithe and breakable in Jerome's arms. He probably always would be. 

Jerome was oddly careful in handling Bruce. In laying him down, spreading him out over the bed with the implication, the unspoken insistence that Bruce would spread his legs as well, he was, indeed, treating him as though he were breakable. Once he was underneath Jerome, though, responding to his touch, writhing and clinging and weeping, it was different and Bruce was meant to be punished and toyed with. Perhaps it was more than everything was meant to be deliberate. Nothing was allowed to take Bruce by surprise or take advantage of him except for Jerome's own two hands. 

Jerome tore his costume off—it was the last night of the show, after all, it wouldn't matter if it was in a crumpled heap on his floor. It was too gaudy in Bruce's opinion, anyway. Perfectly fitting role, but ill-fitting clothing. His fingers found Jerome's hair and they twisted tightly in it, biting at Jerome's lip this time, desperately wanting to fight back. He wasn't a porcelain doll. Jerome groaned against Bruce's mouth, pushing up the hem of his turtleneck and dragging his fingernails back down Bruce's stomach. Bruce shivered and arched into the touch, even as it bit and hurt as much as it did. It felt right.

As Jerome cut him into smaller and smaller pieces, Bruce felt more and more whole. 

* * *

"Those are going to kill you."

Jerome's split, scarred lips stretched into an easy smile as he flicked ash in Bruce's general direction. "The big man upstairs has been wanting me dead for years, Bruce. If He's gonna kill me, He'd better go ahead and do it already. Either stick it in or don't. I cheat death like I'm its military wife."

Bruce shook his head and pulled his turtleneck over his head. It hid the damage that had been done. He was a gallery of bite marks and bruises and cuts and scratches, and the recent ones just looked like he had been picking at scabs that had started to open and bleed again. "I heard you were going out of town," he said, his eyes flickering briefly up to Jerome, his body flecked and speckled with burn scars that created patterns of lightning across his skin. They looked golden in the dim light from the table lamp, hazy with smoke. 

"The playwright sure is a gossiping sonuvabitch, isn't he?" Jerome said lazily. "I could be. A few shows in some place in Champaign with a bunch of hacks who need to be whipped into shape." 

"How long?"

"Could be a week." Jerome cut himself off with a round of coughing before finally deciding to open the bedroom window. "Could be permanent."

"What? Why?" Bruce couldn't stand the disappointment in his voice. He flushed and looked down, pulling his boots back on as Jerome giggled. 

"Aw, Brucie, you're gonna miss me!" he cooed. "I knew you would. You're adorable."

 _"No,_ I'm just wondering why you didn't decide to tell me before now and I heard it secondhand while I was waiting for you backstage." 

Jerome shrugged. "I wasn't about to give your birthday present away just like that."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're coming with me." 

Bruce blinked. "What?"

"You're coming to Champaign. Ditch your lonely corpse of a dad for good." 

"I. . . can't. I belong here. I have to stay. I have school. And—" _And Selina._ "—and I have friends. I can't just come with you." 

"Nonsense, Bruce." Jerome's eyes flicked over to Bruce, shiny and catlike in the small light. "I think, at this point, I can consider you more or less my property. You'll go wherever I might like to take you."

Bruce felt a drip of fear follow the length of his spine. Something like a bad memory. He controlled his breathing and pulled his coat on, searching for his gloves in his pockets. "Are you giving me cab fair or do I have to pay myself again?"

Jerome crushed his cigarette against the windowsill and crept across the bed, grabbing Bruce's arm and pulling the second he was within reach. Bruce stumbled and let out a tiny noise of surprise, his knee and Jerome's grip keeping him from falling face-first back into the ruined bedsheets. 

"Say yes and I'll give you anything you want, darling," Jerome said, soft and silky, brushing his nose with Bruce's in a false symbol of affection. Or maybe it wasn't. Or maybe it was just more comfortable to imagine it wasn't. "I want to wake up to you every morning and think about how much I'd like to dig my fingers into you and pick your bones clean."

The idea of waking up in the same bed as Jerome every morning, making Bruce think of the day where the black week had begun, was a finality that Bruce couldn't embrace. He'd wake up soaked in sweat every night instead of maybe every few days, gasping and choking like he was drowning, grabbing at nothing and feeling lost and hopelessly alone. He'd think of waking up like he was a puppy who needed to be put down, unable to stand without tumbling over, sick to his stomach and wanting his father. 

"No. I can't," Bruce whispered. "I can't." 

Jerome stared at him for a moment, face etched into hard frustration and anger. Bruce tensed, automatically preparing to feel a sharp sting across his cheek. 

And then Jerome released him, as if he couldn't care less. He reached for the little metal box and little paper box on the nightstand and lit another cigarette. "You'll change your mind," he said, as if he were just reminding Bruce of a simple fact. "You've got a month, golden boy. You'll change your mind."

"Cab fair?" Bruce reminded him. 

"Coat pocket. Say hi for me when you get home. Like always."

When Bruce left to check Jerome's coat, he remembered both pockets had holes in them. His fingers fit through the bottoms of each of them and he exhaled tightly, slamming the apartment door behind him when he left. 

It was fourteen degrees and felt colder. The six minutes Bruce spent waiting for a cab were complete agony as he froze to the sidewalk outside the apartment complex. It was past eleven and Jeremiah was almost certainly no longer buying the library excuse, even if the place did close at twelve. Bruce was, as Selina put it, an antisocial geek by nature, but even _he_ couldn't imagine spending five hours at the library. 

The house was dark, looking peaceful and quiet when Bruce got back, save for the porch light glowing like a lighthouse when he stepped out of the cab. 

_I couldn't wait up for you because I have a presentation tomorrow at 6 A.M.,_ read the loopy scrawl on the note on the front door. _We're going to have a heart-to-heart when you get home from school tomorrow so don't make any plans. I hope your date was worth it._

_(I love you. Thank you for coming home safe. xx)_

Bruce closed his eyes briefly before taking a breath and opening the front door, crushing the note in his fist. 

Jeremiah's bedroom door was left halfway open when Bruce passed it. He paused, lingering in the doorway, watching Jeremiah's sleeping form, the blue blink of his alarm clock throwing tiny, flashing ladybug spots across his father's pale face. 

Bruce's hand slipped back into his coat pocket, feeling the ice-cold handle of the switchblade he'd kept near and dear to him for five years. 

_Only use it on people who deserve it,_ he thought, hearing it clear as the night sky just outside their broken home. 

It had stopped two years ago. Gradually, it had begun to stop. With every inch he'd grown, with every baby tooth lost, with darkening, fuller hair and longer limbs, with a rougher, deeper, smoother voice, it had happened less and less. 

Jeremiah had begun to grow bored with him. He was growing up. After his fifteenth birthday, Bruce had simply become Jeremiah's son. He was nothing more than that and would never be again. 

It was nothing more complex than that. At least not for Jeremiah. 

Bruce withdrew his hand from around the switchblade in his pocket. 

He wouldn't do it, but he wouldn't ever stop thinking about it. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested, there's a pastebin of my thoughts about the writing process here and it's quite depressing and triggering, so read that at your own risk as well: https://pastebin.com/nxvzwqtk


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